My Organizer's new look, new features

We've upgraded our college planning tools and information with enhanced searches and calculators, along with new videos of college students telling their own stories and educators sharing advice. Because the site has changed so much, some saved information may no longer be available. We're sorry for any inconvenience, but hope you'll explore the great new features the site has to offer.

Save Your College List

Manage your college list in the "My Colleges" tab. You'll find all the colleges you've saved earlier and have easy access to the colleges' important information. Use College Search to explore your preferences and find colleges to add to your list.

Save Your College Search

Sign in to save a set of search criteria based on your college preferences. Searches saved on the old site are not available in the new site. Use the new search to refine your choices and get advice on how to make your selections.

Financial Aid Tools & Calculators

Visit My Ways to Pay and use our tools and calculators to search for scholarships, find out what college costs, calculate how college loans add up over time and much more. Scholarship searches and any information saved on the old site are no longer available, but can be resaved in the new site when you sign in.

Chrome — Click the Chrome menu on the browser tool bar (three lines on the top right of the browser window) > Select Tools > Select Clear browsing data > In the dialog that appears, select the checkboxes from the types of information that you want to remove > Select the amount of data you want to delete > Select Clear browsing data

You will be able to see which test centers have seating availability as part of registration. If the test center you choose is not available, the system will display a reason for its closure. Although your first-choice test center may not always be available, registering early gives you the best chance of finding a seat at the test center you want.

Your responses to the SAT Questionnaire are important for two reasons: They give your counselors and college admission staff information to help you plan your future, and they provide information to the College Board to help us ensure that the SAT is fair for all students.

Once you've filled out the SAT Questionnaire or SAT profile, you don't have to fill it out again unless you need to make an update. If you choose to make an update, your new answer will completely replace the old one, so make sure to answer the entire question. For example, if you want to add the calculus class that you've just completed, you'll need to update the list with all of your math classes again.

Only student accounts can be used for online SAT registration, so even if your parent has a parent or professional My Organizer account, he or she won't be able to use that account to register you for the SAT. In order to register online for the SAT, you need to sign in under your personal My Organizer account.

When you are ready to finish registering, go back to My SAT and click Finish Registering next to the test date for which you were registering. This will let you pick up where you left off. If you experience technical problems completing your online registration form, the information that you've already entered will most likely be saved.

This depends on whether you've already submitted the online registration. If you haven't submitted your registration, it will stay incomplete until the late registration deadline. Once that deadline has passed, your incomplete registration will be deleted from the system.

Once you have completed your online registration, it can't be canceled and test fees can't be refunded. If you need to change your test date, you can transfer your registration to a future test date through your online account. There is an additional fee for transferring a registration, so have your credit card ready.

Your username and password are case sensitive, so be sure to use the same uppercase or lowercase letters you used when you first set up your username and password. Can't remember your username or password? Visit Forgot Your Password? to have your hint e-mailed to you.

When you use different online services (such as SAT Registration and College Search), you'll be asked to sync up your accounts. If you've forgotten your old username and password, you can contact Customer Service.

Your privacy is very important to us, so we've put several measures in place to protect any personal information that you give us. Learn more about the College Board's online privacy protection by reading our Privacy Policy. We also recommend that you use certain Web browsers that let you submit personal information in a secure, encrypted form.

When we're updating the site or performing routine maintenance, you may notice that online registration is running slowly or becomes temporarily unavailable. You should return later to begin your registration.

Sometimes registration also runs slowly because of a high volume of users. This tends to happen around registration deadlines and right before test days. The best times to register are well before deadline days, in the early morning and afternoon, and on weekends.

Yes. You'll be asked to enter the registration number or the date of your previous test. You can find the registration number on your SAT Admission Ticket or SAT score report. Remember: you won't be able to access your SAT records online without a valid registration number.

If you've registered by mail more than once, you can enter any of your previous registration numbers. Don't have access to a previous registration number? Don't sweat it — you can call Customer Service.

This depends on the type of test that you would like to add, as well as whether you require testing accommodations. Please note that there are fees for any additional SAT Subject Tests you take.

If you are registered for at least one SAT Subject Test and would like to add one or two SAT Subject Tests (other than a Language Test with Listening) you don't have to contact us. You can just add them at the test center. You can take up to three SAT Subject Tests at one administration.

If you are testing with approved accommodations that require school-based testing, you need to contact Customer Service at least two weeks (three weeks for international students) before the test date to make any changes to the SAT Subject Tests you want to take.

Sunday Testing

Sunday testing is available for students who are unable to test on a Saturday due to a religious observance. We need to have a letter on file from your clergy on your religious institution’s letterhead to provide this service. This means your first registration must be by paper. When you register by mail for Sunday testing, use test center code 01000 for the first-choice test center, and leave the second-choice test center blank. Be sure to enclose the letter from your clergy on letterhead.

Once you have tested on a Sunday and we have that information on file, you can register for future exams online or over the telephone. (Remember: An additional fee is charged for phone registrations.) You can also register again by paper, however, the letter from your clergy must be included for all mailed Sunday registrations.

Scores

Most colleges use your SAT scores to see how well you can apply the skills you learned in high school. It also gives them an objective way to compare you with other students who took the test. For example, if your scores on each section are about 500, which is close to the mean (average) score, admission staff would know you scored about as well as half of the students who took the test.

It's important to remember, however, that your test scores are not the only information colleges use to make their admission decisions. Grades are a very important part, while essays, recommendations, interviews and extracurricular activities also play a role.

According to several studies, the SAT does as good a job as your overall high school grade point average (GPA) at predicting how you will do in your first year of college. In fact, when the two are combined (SAT plus GPA), they are more predictive than either alone. Of course, there are many other factors — including your interest and personal motivation — that influence how well you will actually do in college. Admission officers use your SAT scores and high school GPA along with other factors, like extracurricular activities and other interests, to determine how well you'll fit with their school.

Your SAT scores are released on collegeboard.com approximately three weeks after you take the exam. Although most scores are available on the first score release day, a small percentage might not be. If you fall in this small percentage, instead of seeing your scores, you will see a message instructing you to check back at a later date. You will need to check back — usually about a week later — for your scores and to see your full score report.

Scores may be released later for reasons that include a late receipt of answer sheets, missing information on your answer sheet, information that is inconsistent with your registration information, or other uncommon conditions that flag your test for more attention. Also, if you took a makeup test later than the actual test day, your scores will be released later.

You can order additional score reports to be sent to colleges, universities, scholarship programs or other programs. (This is in addition to the four reports included with your registration that you had an opportunity to select within nine days after test day.) Only scores sent directly from the College Board are "official." For example, photocopied score reports or scores on your high school transcript can't be validated. There is a fee associated with ordering additional reports. You can order score reports online or print a form and order them by mail.

You can request rush score reports when you order score reports online or by mail. There is an additional fee for rushing your score reports, so you will want to make sure that you are aware of the deadlines for the colleges and universities that you are applying to.

Your test scores and your responses to the SAT Questionnaire are retained on active file until June of the year after the school year in which you tested. After that, only the test scores are archived. Learn more about requesting old scores.

If you are concerned that your score has not been accurately reported as a result of a scanning or processing error, you can request a score verification. You may request to have your multiple-choice scores and/or essay score verified up to five months after the test date. There is a fee for having your score verified, but this fee will be waived if we determine that your score has been incorrectly reported.

We also offer two student answer verification services (for the SAT only), Question-and-Answer Service and Student Answer Service, to help give students comfort that their exam has been scored accurately.

SAT Subject Test scores can help you show colleges how well you know specific subjects. Like the SAT, the SAT Subject Tests give colleges an objective way to see how you did in comparison to other students who took the test.

Colleges also use SAT Subject Test scores to help determine how prepared you are for different college programs, to place you in freshman or higher-level course work, and to advise you on course selection.

While some colleges recommend and others require SAT Subject Test scores, even colleges that do not require SAT Subject Tests may still look at your scores to learn more about your academic background and interests.

Every essay is scored by two experienced and trained high school and/or college teachers. The two readers don't know your identity or each other. Each reader gives the essay a score from 1 to 6 (6 is the highest score) based on the established scoring guide. If the two readers' scores differ by more than one point, a third reader scores the essay. You can review the How the Essay is Scored page for more information.

There is no one definition of a "good" score on the SAT. Generally speaking, scoring close to the mean (average) — about 500 on critical reading, 500 on mathematics and 500 on writing — shows that you scored as well as about half of the other students who took the test. Each college has its own way of using test scores and evaluating applicants. Also, the score reports sent to colleges include percentiles and score ranges that provide some context for how well you did on the test.

No, this situation is quite normal. While the scores for each section only depend on your test performance, percentiles will differ depending on how the entire group of test-takers performed on each section. If your percentile is 95, that means you scored higher than 95 percent of the seniors in the previous year who took the test. The more students there are who received lower scores, the higher your percentile will be. For example, a score of 700 on both the critical reading and mathematics sections might yield a critical reading percentile of 95 and a mathematics percentile of 93 because more students had lower scores for the critical reading section than for the mathematics section.

No. Percentiles are based on a comparison of your score to the most recent college-bound seniors who took the same test. From year to year, your percentile can change slightly depending on the scores of the group to which your score is being compared.

If you decide to use Score Choice™, the College Board will not release scores to colleges and universities for admission purposes without your consent. If you don't opt to use Score Choice, all of your scores will be sent to your chosen institutions and programs. Most colleges only look at your highest scores, so you should feel comfortable sending all of them.

When the scores are received depends on some additional factors. Colleges may have their own individual time frames for accessing your score from us. If you mailed your rush request to us, it may have taken several extra days for us to receive and start processing. Also, remember, we can only rush report scores that have been released, so if your scores aren’t yet available, they wouldn’t have been sent.

When you register for the SAT, you will have the opportunity to send scores to colleges and scholarship programs. Four score reports are included as part of your registration. You may also choose four additional schools or scholarship programs for an additional fee for each report.

After your test has been scored, you can send additional score reports at any time, for an additional fee per score report.

If you're undecided about where to send your scores, don't worry: You can add or change your score recipients online until 11:59 p.m. ET on the Monday one week after your scheduled test date. If you registered by mail, you can use the Correction Form enclosed with your Admission Ticket to make these changes. You have up until the day of the test to submit the Correction Form to add or change score recipients. Additional score reports can be ordered at any time online or by mail, for a fee.

No — this one's a myth. The truth is that we don't report scores that are lower than 200. If we received a blank answer sheet with only your name filled in, it would be considered an automatic request to cancel your scores, and no scores would be reported.

Collegeboard.com gives you access to My SAT Online Score Report, a free, detailed online score report that includes a copy of your actual essay. You will be able to see the types of questions, the level of difficulty, and how many in each group of questions you answered correctly, incorrectly or omitted.

There are also three other free or low-cost tools that you can use to better understand your scores: SAT Skills Insight™, the Question-and-Answer Service (QAS), and Student Answer Service. Learn more about these tools on our Scores page.

A college will be able to view and print a copy of your essay as long as you sent an official score report to that college.

Studies have shown that SAT writing scores are an excellent predictor of how you will perform in college. As a result, many colleges use the scores when making admission decisions and determining placement in English composition or related courses.

Taking the SAT

You will have 3 hours and 45 minutes to take the SAT, not including breaks and check-in time. On a typical test day, you will need to arrive by 7:45 a.m., and the test should be finished between 12:30 and 1 p.m.

Yes, definitely. While you won't be able to eat or drink during the actual exam, you're encouraged to bring snacks for break times. During testing, you'll be asked to store your bag or backpack, with your food and drinks, under your desk. During breaks, your test supervisor will let you know when you can go to the designated area for snacking.

The essay question will ask you to develop a point of view on an issue and support it with examples from what you've learned in and outside of school. Topics do not require you to have previous knowledge. There is no right or wrong answer — you can answer the question successfully in many different ways. Although you won't need to have any previous knowledge about the topic to write an effective essay, you will need to stay on topic. Learn more about writing a successful essay.

There are several SAT accommodations available to students with disabilities, including Braille exams, extended testing time and computers for the essay portion of the writing section. In order to receive accommodations, a student needs to provide documentation and be validated by the College Board. Learn more about SAT accommodations and how to request them at Services for Students with Disabilities.

The rumor that the SAT test your friend took in last January was easier than your October exam isn't true.

All editions of the SAT are developed using the same test specifications. Even if there are tiny differences in difficulty from test to test, we use a statistical process called "equating" to make sure that a score for a test taken on one date or at one place is equivalent to a score for a test taken on another date or in another place.

The questions on the SAT and SAT Subject Tests are developed by high school teachers, college professors and other education experts. This diverse group makes sure that the tests reflect what you are learning in school. After the questions are developed, they are also put through a rigorous review to ensure that each question is fair for students from all backgrounds.

Cheating is not okay. It is unfair to students who have put in the hard work and play by the rules. If you see it or hear about it, report it. You can confidentially report suspected cheating on the SAT by contacting the Office of Testing Integrity by phone at 609-406-5430 or 800-257-5123 (test day only), or by email at testsecurity@info.collegeboard.org.